Robert Coalson worked as a correspondent for RFE/RL from 2002 to 2024.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has signed into law new amendments that define beer as alcohol for the first time and place restrictions on its sale. No longer will Russians be able to buy a bottle of beer in a kiosk at any time of the day or night.
Facing escalating inflation, depleted hard-currency reserves, and a rapidly devaluing currency, Belarus has turned to the IMF and Eurasec. It seems likely that any offer of aid from either group will also come with unsavory conditions for Belarus's authoritarian president.
Iconic American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan is turning 70. His heartfelt songs have been translated into dozens of languages and have inspired poets around the world, changing the global landscape of popular music. Here's a look at Dylan's lasting imprint in RFE/RL's broadcast area.
The contours of Russia's next election season are becoming clearer, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is sending the strongest signals yet that he intends to return to the presidency in 2012.
Both Washington and Moscow have expressed the desire to see Russia join the World Trade Organization by the end of this year. The only stumbling block is Georgia, which insists on being able to monitor trade along the border between Russia and the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has delivered an uncompromising state-of-the-nation address before parliament, even as the country is still reeling from the recent terrorist bombing in Minsk, a months-long crackdown on political dissent, and a worsening economic crisis.
The Russian government this week released the first preliminary results from last year's census, so far confirming a long-running demographic crisis and sparking debate about the latest headcount's accuracy and the government's response.
Students in the Russian region of Bashkortostan are protesting the alleged suppression of Bashkir language and culture -- a quiet, but stern test of Moscow's claims that Russia is multicultural, multiconfessional federation.
An antidiscrimination bill in Moldova has become a bone of contention between religious conservatives and gay-rights activists. And the bill's opponents have brought in some controversial figures from the U.S. religious right to bolster their arguments.
"Young people all over the world, in any nation lucky enough to be democratic, need to grow up to be participants in a form of government in which people inform themselves about crucial issues they will address as voters," writes U.S. academic Martha Nussbaum in her 2010 book, "Not For Profit: Why Democracy Needs The Humanities."
With globalization multiplying the avenues by which corrupt practices span the globe, experts are debating the nature of corruption and how to stop it.
Voters in Moldova return to the polls on November 28 for the country’s third parliamentary elections in less than two years.
Following a model that seems to have worked in Ukraine, where a pro-Western president was replaced earlier this year by a pro-Russian one, United Russia is also now working actively with friendly parties in Moldova, Ukraine, and Georgia -- all countries whose political vector is up for grabs in the next 18 months.
The recent instability and violent interethnic clashes in Kyrgyzstan have presented a stark test for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and for Kyrgyz neighbor Kazakhstan, which currently holds the OSCE's rotating chairmanship. Analysts fear that Kazakhstan is failing the test, putting its own national interests above its duties as head of the Eurasian region's premier security body.
A group of American researchers has issued a new paper demonstrating that the 11 regions of western Russia that were most severely affected by the Holocaust lag behind the rest of the country economically and are more politically conservative to the present day.
As global policymakers gather for the annual Munich Security Conference, Russia is growing more strident in its complaints that the European security system is dysfunctional. At the same time, the United States and the West insist that the NATO alliance is and will remain the foundation of security on the continent. Is it time, then, to move seriously toward a membership action plan -- and eventual NATO membership -- for Russia?
In July, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama signed an agreement that would allow the United States to transit lethal military cargo via Russian airspace to Afghanistan. Six months later, it appears that much-touted agreement has produced very few tangible results.
Kazakhstan today formally began its one-year chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Speaking at a session of the organization’s Permanent Council in Vienna, Kazakh Foreign Minister Kanat Saudabaev expressed his country’s intention of aggressively supporting all the main activities of the group.
On October 27, 1999, armed men stormed the Armenian parliament and killed eight people, including the prime minister and speaker. Ten years later, lawmakers and other officials say the tragedy permanently changed the emerging institutions in post-Soviet Armenia.
Legislators from three normally Kremlin-friendly factions walked out of the Russian parliament this week to protest alleged fraud during regional elections three days earlier. Defiant deputies hope to rally the public.
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